“Do I Look Like My Selfie?”: Filters and the Digital-Forensic Gaze

Abstract

Filtered faces are some of the most heavily engaged photos on social media. The vast majority of literature on selfies have focused on self-reported practices of creating and posting selfies and how subjects view themselves, but research on using filters and the kinds of looking filter provoke is underexplored. Part of a larger project, this analysis draws from a study using photo-elicitation techniques to discuss selfie filters with 12 focus groups, exploring the dominant discourses of cis-gendered looking within digital sociality. We explore how participants edit their selfies, imagine potential audiences, interact with, and perceive the filtering behaviors of others, asking what the "work" of filters is, visually and socially. We probe the kinds of discourses filters participate in, and their gendered and affective dimensions. Our focus groups indicate that when looking at the selfies of others there is often an a priori assumption that filtering has been applied, whether conspicuously or not, to the extent that visual tune-ups have become central to the genre itself. As such, we explore the ambivalence and anxiety about authenticity that filters produce, as well as the intense looking practices aimed at decoding the legitimacy of images. We posit that filters are part of a digital ecosystem that demands an intensification of looking practices, which produce and enhance specific forms of objectification directed toward selves and others within digital environments.

#Filterdrop: Attending to Photographic Alterations

“…Indeed, participants in Lavrence and Cambre's study generally believe that selfies are filtered but when looking at less conspicuously edited idealised images reported thinking, in conflict with their scepticism, "she's so pretty". 35 "Before" and "after" images can show the unreality of convincingly altered photographs. One study, for instance, demonstrated that viewing both "natural" and idealised images reduced the negative impact of the idealised images on women's facial appearance satisfaction.…”

Use of Beauty Applications and Ar Beauty Filters Among Young People: Trends and Challenges

“…Users of these apps are able to engage in real-time face figure distortion (e.g., making the eyes look bigger or in different color) and feature addition (e.g., adding dog ears or fashion accessories on top of a user's face) which are enabled by a variety of available filters (Fribourg, Peillard, & Mcdonnell, 2021). Filtered faces are some of the most predominant and heavily engaged photos on social media (Lavrence & Cambre, 2020) and not only users spend some time looking at themselves through these filters while taking selfies, they can as well use these filters on video calls or video conference with social networks apps. Such filters have received an increased interest in sociological studies, exploring for instance the long term impact of beauty filters on self-perception and self-esteem (e.g.…”

“…These AR filters are being utilized more and more frequently, and they have the potential to modify users' facial features in many ways. There is a consensus among authors that research on using AR filters, beauty apps and the effects of the appearance caused by those filters, has been insufficiently investigated (Lavrence & Cambre, 2020;Fribourg, Peillard, & Mcdonnell, 2021;Javornik, et al, 2021;Newell, 2022). Some of the previous studies highlight that digital self-tracking devices and beauty apps articulate idealized facial images, body ideal internalization, and sociocultural pressures (Newell, 2022), and this trend can be observed especially among the younger generations.…”